Blocking Ad Networks: Pros/Cons

[avalon37]

I recently started helping a company that has about 4 million page views a day. So serious ad sense earnings and optimization. They have been running rich media, image, text ads.

I'm no adsense expert - far from it. But I see a lot of Ad Networks that are under-performing when compared to the average Ad Request RPM. I am tempted to start blocking all Ad Networks that are under-performing, but I suspect what might happen is that more low value Ad Networks will just "pick up the slack" and I won't be better off. Since Google Adwords has an average Ad Request RPM that is better than average, I feel like I should just be live on Adwords and block all other networks.

Any advice? I'm sure others' have tested this, but I could find a previous discussion.

[Lame_Wolf]

I feel like I should just be live on Adwords and block all other networks.

I think you'll find that most of us here do that. I have tested these in the past, and they are not worth having, and i've not heard of any success stories from others that I talk to.

[Sally Stitts]

I think you'll find that most of us here do that.

Ditto.

i've not heard of any success stories from others

Ditto.
I HAVE read a lot of reviews, which are not complimentary, by a long shot.

[zdgn]

I see a lot of Ad Networks that are under-performing

Speaking for myself, after years of experiments and studies, I don't block anything on AdSense for my diverse portfolio.

Because unless I have access to the AdSense inner-working algorithms, it is humanly impossible for me to know what Ad/Ad-Network is under-performing to who/what/when/how.

In fact I can't even begin to quantify 'under-performance', unless

• I somehow simulate being every single visitor on my sites exposed to my every served Ad/Ad-Network
  
• I get competitive alternatives to those under-performing Ad/Ad-Networks from the non-AdSense marketplace (none exist for me at least)

What I for one think is that there is a reason why things under-perform, and mostly it has nothing to do with what I can't really control (the Ad/Ad-Network, etc) but everything to do with what I can control (to who/what/when/how Adsense is being served, ie traffic, quality etc etc.)

But of course everyone's case is different. :-)

[netmeg]

Because unless I have access to the AdSense inner-working algorithms, it is humanly impossible for me to know what Ad/Ad-Network is under-performing to who/what/when/how.

Actually, it's not. You do have the ability to see how much you've earned from each network, going back to some finite point in time.

I did that, saw that the combined earnings for ALL those non-AdWords networks were LESS THAN TEN DOLLARS OVER MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF AD IMPRESSIONS and blocked every single network but Google's, plus blocked any FUTURE networks.

I for one didn't need to have access to an algorithm to make that call.

[Clarence]

Ad Networks:
1,112,736 Ad Network Impression
$74.91 in earnings
65 Clicks


Google Ad Words
3,513,645 Ad Impression
$12,696.18 in earnings
21,888 Clicks

The Ad Networks are 30% of the Traffic, but make up .04% of the Money.

Meaning The Ad Networks got a Million Impressions of my Traffic but only paid 1% of what Ad Words paid for it. That's a 90% Discount on my traffic.

The Ad networks paid me $0.06 per 1000 Ad views.
Google Ad Words paid me $3.61 per 1000 Ad views.

By clearing out the Ad Network, I freed up an over 1 Million Ad impressions for Googlde Ad Word Advertisers which will pay more.

To do this calculation on your own:
Go to:
Performance -> Ad Network
Choose Last 30 days.

Go to the bottom of the Report.
Take the Total Ad Request then minus them from Google Ad Words Request.
This will get you the total ad impression for all Ad Networks - Google.

Take the Total Earning then minus them from Google Ad Words Earnings.
This will get you the total ad earning for all Ad Networks - Google.

"Google make these numbers confusing by grouping them"

Ignore the clicks, because most of these network bid by impression only.

Divide your Ad Network impression by 1,000. Save the Number.
Divide your Ad Network earning by the number you got above. < YOUR RPM "Earning per 1,000 ad impression".

Now compare that number to your Google Ad Words RPM.

Then Shake your head in misery when you realized how much dirt cheap advertising you gave away to these crappy Ad Networks.

Next step.
Block them all, and block all future networks.

Next Step:
Monitor you're earnings, CTR, and RPM for the next 2 weeks to 1 Month.

Last Step:
Enjoy the new income you receive and the better targeted ads you receive.

Don't be scared that you will lose possible income, You won't.
Don't be scared that less advertiser competing for you space will lower the price, it won't.

These Ad Networks bid for what's called "excess inventory". Basically the dirt cheap traffic they can get in bulk for little money. So don't even pay for the traffic they exchange traffic with Google "Google advertises with them, and they get advertising on Google at a dirt cheap rate".

Google Likes them because it's pre-paid Money, and Google finds place to dump the Ad impressions. Yes I said dump the ad impression.

Do the numbers, and test it for yourself.

[Clarence]

Google: "These networks compete for your ad inventory, potentially increasing your total AdSense revenue." Take note of that word "potentially". In reality they discount you traffic. It's better to give more relvant advertise that space for cheaper "who will get clicks" then to stuff it full of super direct cheap CPM advertisers.

I've seen Ad Network's bidding $0.03 CPM getting impressions on my site. I would personally prefer to give Free Ad Space to Charity then to accept such low earnings.

[matrix_jan]

@Clarence

Did you take out (Unmatched ad requests) from other networks before registering data?

[matrix_jan]

My other networks (when I take out adwords and unmatched ad requests) generate 50% more RPM than adwords. So I guess I have to block adwords :)

[Clarence]

If you're using link units on your site, unmatched ad requests might be higher than expected. This is due to the way we count a matched ad request for link units. A matched ad request for a link unit is only counted if the user clicks on a term in the link unit. If the user doesn't click, the ad request is considered unmatched. As a result, coverage is lower for link units than other ad units.

Source [support.google.com...]

[Clarence]

@matrix_jan

If Ad Networks earn you more then you should keep them.

Kinds of says something about your websites if Adwords Advertiser don't earn more on your site then the Ad Networks.

Either your site is in some rare niche without a lot of Adwords Advertisers, or your site is completely un-targeted and most of your ad income comes from impressions from Ad networks, or your site is about a spammy subject that fits the nature of most Ad Networks inventory.

For you I would say, either leave it alone or block Adwords.

[matrix_jan]

Thanks for the analysis Clarence, the website is not spammy though. Regarding third party ads, I'd say the complete opposite, not only ad networks serve [not spammy] content related ads, but also they are of much higher quality than those coming from adwords. I guess advertisers (mainly giants) from my niche like to work with smaller companies, such as Rocket Fuel and Criteo, more than with G. Currently adwords serves 5 times more ads than other ad networks combined. I don't know if I block adwords there will be enough quality ads from the other networks to serve.

[Zivush]

@ Clarence,
The Ad networks stats (total #s) on one of my sites are much better than yours.
Still, the total number of clicks is very low, not as low as yours, but very low as compared to Adwords.
I think, CTR is the main factor to consider - Blocking this ads, may free up impressions for clicks. Hopefully.

[jpch]

I'm a couple days into this experiment after having allowed all ad networks for years. I kept 9 that were outperforming or about the same as Google. So far haven't seen a noticeable difference one way or the other.

[avalon37]

I blocked all Ad Network except Google and 2 others a few days ago. So far my CPC prices and Page RPM are way down causing me to worry. This is an account that gets about 4,000 adsense clicks per day so being down almost 10 cents per click is concerning. That said, my prices being down might not have anything to do with blocking ad networks.

[Zivush]

CPC prices and Page RPM are way down causing me to worry.

CPC prices down is reasonable but what about CTR (%clicks)?
If CTR (for the freed impressions) went up considerably the RPM must improved.
If CTR is the same as before, the RPM and the total earning might drop.

That said, my prices being down might not have anything to do with blocking ad networks.

How do you know? Why?

[jpch]

After 4 days of declining Page RPM I've ended my experiment.

[Swanny007]

I blocked them all quite a while ago. I saw some ads that were pretty sleazy low quality, not what I expect from Google. When I looked through the list of ad networks they were mostly a bunch of nobodies that I would normally not deal with. So why is Google letting them in the back door? Google has pretty much always been the top tier in terms of quality.

Anyway, I haven't looked back and as far as my earnings are concerned, I haven't seen any impact whatsoever. My advice, dump 'em all and move on.

[azlinda]

I dumped them all last night except for one that appeared to have a fairly decent showing.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I gave ad networks full access last summer for two months and I lost money. I'll try it again when you all say your earnings increased by unblocking them or when Google subsidizes their testing of my site so that it costs them and not me.

[swa66]

What I'm still seeing after a number of days now is that the
- introduction a few weeks ago of the ugly blue arrows on my site caused a dip in CTR, and a stable CPC
- introduction of the enhanced ads seems to have leveled off the CTR to what it was before, but at the same time increased the CPC by 50% or so.

Now the looks of ads: CTR will be impacted, of course. But the revenue going up due to an increase in CPC has nothing to do with the looks of the ads at all. That's either better competition (which isn't going to be caused by the looks of the ads) or by google giving us a bigger cut (again not based on the looks of the ads, more likely to make us accept the ugly arrows). Google giving us a bigger cut is going to be a short term thing for sure.

What I do admire is the effort that Google puts into making different looks for their ads, that combats ad blindness and is important, but they should let us have more say in which of those looks we want to participate in (e.g. I don't want the ugly blue arrows), and then within what's available present a diversity as large as is allowed.

[Clarence]

Swa66?

avalon37 Any updates?